ABSTRACT
Before the Lebanese Civil War, Lebanon’s Jewish community played an active role in everyday life of the country. This chapter argues that these contributions extended to the realm of sports, as illustrated by the case of David Saad, Lebanon’s last Jewish Olympian. Through interviews conducted with him and his former teammate, this chapter details how Saad’s road to the Olympics was shaped by the ensuing geopolitics of the time. This includes the anti-Semitism he and many other Lebanese Jews faced in the wake of the Six-Day War. His story also offers a glimpse into how Lebanon utilised its diaspora during the civil war to represent it at the 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics. Therefore, this study adds to the growing literature on Lebanon’s diaspora, its Jewish community and its participation in the Olympics.
